“So what does it mean for a person to devote himself or herself to, as you put it, literary reading and thinking? I would argue this is a person whos trying to see things for what they are. Whos int...”

“Why?' He kept asking in his sweetly belling voice, its tone as pure as marbles swirled around a crystal pail. Why him wun up the tree? Why him nest up theah? Why him gadder nuts? Why? Why? Why? And...”

“...he wonders by what process virtually any discussion about the war seems to profane these ultimate matters of life and death. As if to talk of such things properly we need a mode of speech near t...”

“As if sorrow is the true reality? Without ever putting his mind to it, he's come to believe that loss is the standard trajectory.”

“Ultimately, culture, secular and otherwise, is a collection of survival strategies. The things that look like decorationpoetry, novels, music, dancingif you strip away all the layers, are mechanism...”

“Much of life, fatherhood included, is the story of knowledge acquired too late: if only Id known then what I know now, how much smarter, abler, stronger, I would have been. But nothing really prepa...”

“I am done looking for love where it doesnt exist. I am done coughing up dust in attempts to drink from dry wells.”

“I smiled and looked at her- there she was with such a genuine grin and twinkle in her eyes. I kissed my mother on her forehead and took a long look in to her hazel eyes. I wondered when I would hav...”

“Maternal absence, in one form or another, is always found in the background of the incest romance. Womens literature on incest generally treats the theme of maternal absence tragically. Mens litera...”

“There are orphanages," he exclaimed to himself, "for children who have lost their parents--oh! why, why, why, are there no harbours of refuge for grown men who have not yet lost them?”

“Its the great surprise of my life that I ended up loving [my father] so much.”

“It pleased Aliena that they were all together: she and Jack and their children, and Jack's mother, and Aliena's brother, and Martha. It was quite like an ordinary family, and Aliena could almost fo...”

“work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it.”

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”

“That's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you and love you when you're not so lovable.”